Defense: Soul
by SilverFlameoftheWindScar
Summary: Ichigo's still having a bit of trouble trying to conceal the effects of the Hollow Mask, but, when he sees that Akuji is beating himself up over it, they finally find a way to fix the problem. Let me know if the rating should go up. Don't wanna get banned


Defense: Soul

One-shot

DISCLAIMER: As with the other five, if it's not a specific copyright, it's mine. Examples: Duex, soul-to-body thingy, Ichigo's change, Akuji Apollo, etc…

Well, hopefully this is the second to last one. If not, then we'll have a few more one-shots from yours truly. If so, then the last one is going to be long, as in chapters.

(--)

(--)

(--)

Ichigo was still in his Soul Form, trying to make the marks on his body disappear. Akuji was sitting in his desk chair, watching as the teen glowed the sky-blue of his reiatsu. _I'm sorry, Ichi… If I'd known this would-a happened…_ he trailed off, cursing their Mask in his mind with a very colorful, thorough fashion. A silent sigh escaped him as he closed his eyes, fearing that he'd literally stare a hole through his other half.

As the Shinigami opened his eyes, they shone in the color of his reiatsu until it faded along with the energy surrounding him. He panted slightly, noticing that the marks were still there. _Damn it!_ he growled in his head, nearly summoning his reiatsu again but stopping when he saw Akuji's forlorn expression. With a silence previously unable to attain, Ichigo stepped over to his pale other. "Akuji… You'd better not be blaming yourself for this…"

A humorless smirk came to the Hollow's face. "How'd ya know?" The living one stared at him, 'duh' written all over his face. "All right, all right… I can't help it, Ichigo… If I hadn't-a put that Mask on your face, this wouldn't-a happened…"

"It very well could have! Stop moping and help me out here! Help me do as Zangetsu always says! Besides, you swallowed one of those crystals, too! Maybe I need your help to do this!" Ichigo exclaimed at him, wanting to make his other feel better and trying to get his mind off of the problem itself and onto how to fix it.

"I…" Akuji sighed, looking away from his Shinigami until the teen gently grabbed his chin, forcing them to lock eyes. He bit his lip lightly before saying, "You're the King." Ichigo glared, a scowl etched deeply into his face before it was changed into a small smirk. "Why are you…?" Akuji's mind was screaming at him, _King is _smirking_! Not good; run!_ but his motor skills weren't corresponding to his brain, leaving him looking like a deer in headlights.

Leaning down to his other's eyelevel, the strawberry-christened fifteen-year-old kissed his Hollow softly, brushing his tongue over the other's lips before pulling away. "I'll have to tease you every time you call me 'King'. And believe me, Akuji…I will." Ichigo allowed his eyes to fall to half-lidded before kissing the paler of the two properly and feeling the Hollow's grin against his mouth.

"I'll be lookin' forward to it…King," was the reply, getting a 'we shall see' look from the living one before the claw-like nails that belonged now to Ichigo as well as Akuji were gliding lightly, _extremely_ teasingly, over pale-as-ash skin. _Ichi's right… Holy damn, damn, damn…that feels good…_ "If ya don't quit that…we're gonna need the door and window locked, the curtains pulled closed, and this room soundproofed… A bed wouldn't hurt…"

"Does that mean my soul is ready, Akuji?" Ichigo could tell, through their many connections – mind, soul, power, and, possibly soon, body – that Akuji's half of them certainly was. It saddened him slightly that _he_ was the reason that their two halves hadn't become one yet.

Akuji looked up into Ichigo's eyes, staring through them. "I…think it was the Mask… Whatever it did…it changed you…" The inquisitive expression was still on the Shinigami's face and, when the Hollow tackled him, he knew the answer was a definite 'yes'.

When Ichigo realized that the upper part of his shihaksho had been removed and Akuji was busy trailing his mouth and hands along his chest, abdomen, collarbone, shoulders, and anywhere else the Hollow could reach, he gasped out, "Is there anywhere a little more…secluded?" Akuji lifted his hand, Zangetsu in his grasp, and concentrated on the Zanpaktou, hearing a swooshing sound, the spiritual embodiment of the blade appearing, as he took the soon-to-actually-be-_his_ Shinigami to their mind realm.

"Horny teenagers," Zangetsu grumbled before going down the stairs. He spotted a redheaded Shinigami in Gigai – _Renji_ – a dark-haired girl – _Karin­_ – a brown-haired girl – _Yuzu_ – and two other Shinigami who were drunk off sake. He scoffed at the two – _Yamamoto and Isshin_ – as he stepped over to the other three.

"And you are?" Karin asked, eyebrow lost under her baseball hat. The tall man, in all his seriousness, actually raised an eyebrow at her. "I asked a simple question. It wouldn't surprise me if it was Ichigo who brought you here because he brings in weird people all the time these days."

"HEY!" Renji shouted, adding, "I'm not weird!"

"Could've fooled me, pineapple-head." Renji growled at her, but Zangetsu moved his hand, silencing the Lieutenant.

"My name is Zangetsu. I am the…embodiment of Ichigo's Zanpaktou…his sword," the black-clothed man answered. Zangetsu's cloak billowed about him in a nonexistent wind as he stood in silence. _At least it isn't raining here…_ he reasoned as being one good thing, though he doubted it was raining in Ichigo's inner world any longer either. An hour later, the intimidating personality felt a shift in the Shinigami he was part of. _It is…vanishing. He is learning how to hide his reiatsu. Finally,_ the Zanpaktou realized, a small smile on his face.

--

Inside their mind, Ichigo, with Akuji in the same state but lying on top of him, was lying, nude as the day he was born, on a window of one of the sideways buildings, staring at the sun. "That…that was…indescribable…" the orange-haired one said with a smile, a full smile, on his face.

"Heh…I gotta agree… Just one thing, Ichi," Akuji returned, lifting his head to look into Ichigo's seemingly-sparking, brown eyes. "My turn." Two identical grins, one each, stretched across their faces. Flipping them over, the Shinigami took the top, already assaulting his other's sense of touch.

--

Another hour later found the two completely exhausted but, with Ichigo back in his body, they were lying on his bed. "I feel different…even in my human body…" Ichigo mentioned, letting the concealment over his tattoos to fade, knowing that Akuji liked tracing them. The feather-light nails sliding across them sent tingles through his body. _"I'm too tired at the moment to go again…right _now_ at any rate,"_ he sent to _his_ Hollow.

"Then that means you're too tired to do anything other than moan and groan, right?" Akuji asked as, in all his naked glory, he got up and locked the door, going through the 'lock down,' as he'd dubbed it.

Ichigo looked up at him with a tired smirk. "Exactly how much energy did you have built up for the day we'd screw each other senseless?" The paler one grinned widely before kissing the other heatedly, slowly licking, kissing, and nipping his way down the teen's neck and unclothing the eldest Kurosaki sibling as he went. _Here we go again,_ Ichigo thought to himself.

--

_I repeat myself,_ Zangetsu thought when he felt Ichigo's and Akuji's reiatsu pulsing together for a third time, _Horny teenagers._ He looked up toward the fifteen-year-old's room when something different was happening. _They are…blending?! But not as Duex?! Are they _trying_ to kill each other?!_ He kept his face expressionless as he thought it out. _The two halves are not becoming one, only the separate energies. If that is the case, then they really _have_ shared their power…_

"Why is Ichigo's reiatsu going all over the place?" Renji asked of the Zanpaktou.

"He and Akuji have truly found the way to share their power without combining it. Only Duex will be able to use it to its fullest extent because he has both of their attributes. Ichigo and Akuji, separately, will have that same power, but it will be more like a reserve. If they tried to control it all at once, it would tear them apart."

"Uh…ouch."

"My thoughts exactly," Zangetsu returned to Renji's statement. This time, it was only a half-hour before the energies calmed, a soft red-blue, but not purple, shining for those who could see it. The black-clothed man smiled before he vanished, returning to Ichigo's inner world. "The sun is such a beautiful thing," he mumbled as he watched it sink below the vertical horizon. Chuckling slightly at the pun, he watched as the stars and moon showed themselves.

--

"I sure as hell hope you feel better," Ichigo mumbled before a jolt went through his body, reenergizing his limp form. "Pft…guess this'll be the last time, right?"

--

Finally, after the sun had set, their reiatsu had run its course. They were both drained and dead tired, only wanting to sleep. Ichigo had tossed a pair of boxers and pajamas to his other half while pulling on his own before falling into bed. Akuji, on the other hand, was bright enough to open the window, letting the stuffiness out of the room. Arms wrapped tightly around one another, the Sandman came to say 'hello.'

"_Just how long do you think this peace will last, Ryoka?"_-

Ichigo's eyes snapped open. He looked around, sighting Akuji snuggled against him. Hugging the Hollow tighter caused the other to wake. "Ichi…?" he asked through a yawn. Rubbing his eyes, he yawned again. "Why are you shaking?"

"I-it's…n-nothing…" Ichigo hated the way his voice gave him away. "I…had a dream… I can't remember it, but the last sentence stuck with me… It was Aizen's voice…"

"Don't worry yourself, Ichi. We'll get a whole _case_ of whoop ass and ask him over for a drink." The Shinigami smiled at the lightheartedness and carefree way his other was. "Now there's the expression I like." Akuji trailed his nails along the teen's spine. "We've repaired our split soul by losing control. Lose your worries in the same way, Ichigo."

"Fine…" The orange-haired teen knew his other wanted him to lose control of his mouth, thus telling him what was plaguing him the most. "I'm worried about losing everyone close to me: Dad, Yuzu, Karin, Rukia, Renji, the other Shinigami, Orihime, Chad, Uryu, Keigo, Tatsuki…but most of all…you."

Akuji winked at him, leaving his eye closed. "You worry about everyone else and let me be concerned with us." A half-grin was splayed over his face.

"I thought we were supposed to look out for each other?" The Hollow shrugged before nuzzling the side of the other's neck. "That tickles," Ichigo mumbled, a strangled moan easily working around clenched teeth when Akuji lightly bit down, raking his fangs softly across the sensitive skin.

"Sure it ain't doin' somethin' else, Ichi?" was inquired with a low chuckle.

"Forget me calling you a _normal_ vampire…you're a sex-crazed one… Ah, damn! Stop that!" The last part was added when Akuji attacked the little patch of skin behind Ichigo's right ear. A groan was pulled from his throat when he started getting that odd feeling in his stomach. Rolling over, he pinned Akuji to the bed. "Are three hours not enough for you, Akuji?" he asked playfully. _Me? Playful? Since when?_

"Of course not, Ichigo. After all, I'm a sex-crazed vampire." The Whole Hollow grinned as his other half pressed a specific spot on his lower back, causing him to arch upward. _I guess we know each other's buttons pretty well._ "Unn…do that again…" Ichigo traced a fingertip around the spot, causing Akuji to growl at him in impatience. "C'mon, Kiii_iiing!_"

"What was that? Didn't quite catch it all," the Shinigami asked with a smile against his other half's ear, giving another pinch to draw out a second moan. "That's what I thought…"

"Ya shouldn't be able to think, Ichi…" Akuji replied with his favorite grin before raking his nails, hard enough to leave red marks, from Ichigo's spine to his sides under his shoulder blades. The human arched his back into those talented hands, letting his forehead fall against a pale shoulder. Turning his head to face Ichigo's, the Hollow traced his tongue along the shell of the teen's ear.

"_Fuck!_"

"That's what I had in mind, Ichi."

"J-just…do that…again…" An unrestrained moan came from him when his pale half did so. "Learn somethin' new ev'ry time…" he nearly incoherently stated, brushing his hand down his golden-eyed other's side, acquiring a gasp from him. A smirk came over Ichigo's face as he repeated the action. He suddenly froze when he heard soft, measured sounds coming closer to his door.

"What's the matter, Ichigo?" Akuji asked before being mentally answered with 'footsteps.' Tilting his head slightly, he listened. _"I don't hear anythin', Ichi."_

_"That little transformation of mine must have heightened my natural abilities, then,"_ Ichigo returned before lifting himself from his other to find two shirts, tossing one to Akuji, making sure it ploughed into his face for the humor of seeing him splutter and grumble unintelligently while vanishing his tattoos.

"Ichigo?" It was Yuzu's voice. "Are you awake?" she asked, lightly knocking on the door.

"Yeah. What's up?" he replied, unlocking the door after he'd deemed himself and Akuji efficiently calmed down.

"I need some help in the kitchen," she answered, cracking the door open to see her brother crashing to the floor with Akuji on his back. Ichigo easily flipped them over, righting himself in an upside-down, vertical position with his right hand balancing himself on Akuji's chest. "Um… If you're busy…"

"Not at all," he said with a small, soft smile to his sister before standing on his feet. "Blood rush…" he mumbled, weaving slightly on his way down the stairs. Akuji kept a hand on his shoulder, steadying him. "Thanks." The paler of the two nodded, wrapping his arm around the other affectionately.

As they confronted Yuzu in the kitchen, she said, "I need you to make your special dessert, Ichigo. Dad's got a friend coming over and I'm making a big dinner for all of us. He also told me that he and his son are able to see spirits." Akuji and Ichigo had identical, if toned-down, grins on their faces. "Come on, Ichi! We only got about an hour and a half!"

"All right, calm down!" Ichigo replied to his little sister's good natured whining. He pulled an apron out of a drawer, not wanting to ruin his pajamas, and pulled it over his neck, tying it around his back in a practiced fashion. Unnoticed went the message on the front of it as he pulled a bowl from a cabinet.

As he turned to the counter, setting everything he'd need out, his other's lips contacted his. _"Read the apron,"_ was the reason given, though, if he'd be kissed like that again, he'd forego any reasoning whatsoever. Looking down at the white fabric, 'Kiss the Cook' was displayed proudly across it.

_"Well, it's not like I chose it on _purpose_, is it?"_ he questioned, turning back to the container of flour and measuring utensils. Digging in the refrigerator's fruit drawer, he found strawberries and raspberries. _Yuzu must've been expecting me to make this,_ he thought to himself as he pulled them out, settling them on a cutting board. Reaching across his sister's shoulders, he took a knife from the block on the counter and tossed it over her head.

"Ichi!" she shouted at him as the blunt edge of the blade slid down his index finger before he grabbed the handle. "You're going to hurt yourself one of these times!"

"That's the good thing about living in a clinic," he replied while efficiently and easily slicing the strawberries. After that, he fell into the motions of making his own favorite dessert.

"Never knew ya could cook, Ichi," Akuji said as Ichigo mixed many ingredients together, adding the strawberries and stirring those then slicing the raspberries in half, above the bowl, and doing the same. After he'd poured it into a glass baking dish, putting the ready-to-bake creation in the oven, Akuji stealthily stole the bowl. Running his finger through the batter left afterwards, he stuck his finger in his mouth, jumping his other half when the teen tried to take the bowl back. "Damn that's good! What the hell is it?!"

"I don't really have a name for it. It's just something I whipped up one day, and everyone loves it, so I make it from time to time. Damn it! Give me that n-mmm…" he trailed off when the Hollow stuffed a batter-covered, index finger in his mouth. "Okay, fine, keep the bowl. Just share it," he compromised, copying Akuji and licking the mix from his fingers.

"I gotta wonder what else ya can cook, Ichi." At the statement, Ichigo merely shrugged. After cleaning out the last of the mixture, he washed the bowl and sighted that his special dessert still had about fifty minutes to cook. He cursed the slowness of their oven until his other called, _"Oi! Ichi! Come with me."_

_"What is it?"_ Ichigo asked, turning to Akuji. The Whole Hollow merely took hold of his hand and pulled him up the stairs. "Aku-" his question was silenced by the other's lips on his. "You just can't get enough of me, can you?" he asked when he got a chance for a breath. Akuji chuckled in his special way, sending a shiver down Ichigo's spine. "Hmm…shower with me?"

"Ya think ya gotta ask?" was the answer.

Half an hour later, the two were dressing themselves – Akuji in his normal, pure white shihaksho and Ichigo in a simple yet clashing pair of pants and shirt. Coming down to the kitchen, the Shinigami immediately set to mixing his homemade chocolate icing. The fifteen minutes it took to create it left him five to observe his little sister. "Careful!" he exclaimed, catching Yuzu and the too-heavy pot she was trying to use. "Here; let me get this."

"O-okay…thanks, Ichigo," she replied as he lifted it, dumping the rice into a strainer she had placed into the sink. While he attended that, she took his prize dessert from the oven. Setting the dish on a couple of hotplates, so it could cool, she slowed the boil of his chocolate concoction. As he came over to stir it, she bumped into him purposely, smacking his hand when he ruffled her hair. "Now I'm going to have to brush it again!" she pouted at him.

"You'd brushed it before? I thought it was naturally a mess?" he replied, chuckling when Yuzu smacked him. Lifting the sauce pan from the stove, he carefully poured the chocolate mix over the cake-like creation. Afterwards, he quickly dug around the cabinets. "Damn it! Where is it?! Ah ha!" A bag of confectioner's sugar was in his hand, which was then sprinkled onto the chocolate topping before it cooled. Turning back to the sauce pan that had held the topping, he found it missing. "Akuji!"

"What?! I didn't take it!" Ichigo stared at him before wiping the tip of his index finger over the corner of the Hollow's mouth.

"Then what do you call this?" he asked, lifting it to the other teen's eyes.

"Um…leftovers?" the paler of the two answered, dodging away when Ichigo tried to reach around his back for the cooking utensil hidden there. When the living one nearly caught it, Akuji lifted it above his head. "Can't get it now, can ya?"

"I'm just as tall as you are, you crazy Hollow," Ichigo answered, reaching upward and lifting the sauce pan in his palm before letting it slide down his arm and into his other hand. Having a childish moment, he stuck his tongue out at his Hollow. The Shinigami realized his mistake when his other half kissed him. _"Okay…don't kiss me like that again unless we're alone or else the people around us will be scarred…"_

_"So the King commands,"_ Akuji returned with a mocking grin, happy at getting the chocolate mix back. A knock came to the door, polite yet business-like. "I'll get it," he said, going about his way before Ichigo could stop him. "It's the Quincy and his father."

"…Akuji," Uryu replied after a short pause of remembrance. The Hollow nodded with a half-grin, motioning them into the house. "I take it you and Ichigo are doing well?"

"Yeah. And don't worry, Mr. Ishida, I ain't gonna hurt ya, so loosen your underpants," Akuji said, adding the last part to Uryu's father. Walking back into the kitchen, he pouted a bit when he saw that Ichigo had already washed the sauce pan. "You suck, Ichi."

"You know I've heard that so much from you that it doesn't bother me anymore."

_"I meant differently, Ichi."_ Akuji laughed when a bright red blush crawled its way up his Shinigami's neck to his face. "I haven't seen you that red since Yoruichi revealed herself!" he exclaimed, pointing at the teen's tomato-like visage.

"If I'm not mistaken, you were just as red as I was…" Ichigo grumbled in reply, smacking the Hollow's head. Akuji growled at him before jumping at him, the two brawling into the living room and leaving two stunned guests in Yuzu's care.

"I'm…um…sorry, about that…" she said, leading them to the table.

"It's perfectly fine, Miss…?"

"Yuzu," she answered with a polite smile, going back to the stove to finish cooking.

Suddenly, the front door was slammed open. "YUZU! My lovely daughter!" Isshin shouted, glomping the girl with a hug. "Where is my other lovely daughter, my manly son, and my Hollow-ish son?!" After finishing that question, Karin wondered into the room from the stairs and Akuji came flying into the room with Ichigo tackling him. A moment's thought passed through Isshin Kurosaki's head before he jumped into the brawl as well. The other two rolled with the punches – and kicks – until Yuzu threatened them with death-by-wok.

Ichigo, after standing, pulled his father and his Hollow up from the floor. "I haven't had that much fun in a while," he stated, adding to Akuji, _"Except for earlier today."_

"Ichigo," Uryu called, getting his classmate's attention. "May I speak to you after dinner?"

"Of course. It's not like you have to ask or anything," the Hollow-like Shinigami answered, setting the table before sitting at it with the rest of his family and their guests. "I don't know how you do it, Yuzu, but you always surpass yourself," he complimented.

"You're just trying to get on my good side, Ichigo," she said, hiding a smile when his brows furrowed.

"Ya got a bad side? I never would-a guessed," Akuji said to her, dodging the wooden spoon that came flying from nowhere. "Okay…she's got a bad side…" he corrected himself sheepishly, a half-grin on his face. Akuji was about to add something, no doubt nearly earning himself _another_ wooden projectile, but Ichigo shoved his chopsticks into his mouth.

"Hush and eat before someone eats it for you," he said with a laugh, taking his eating utensils back, sans the bite of rice he'd used to quiet his other half. Before long, the family and guests dissolved into mild conversation, Ichigo and his father getting into a fight from across the table. _"And _that_ is why I call this a front-row seat to a Kurosaki dinner special."_

_"Pft, I'd say."_

_"Bite me."_

_"Gladly."_

_"Not…! …Ah, Nevermind…"_

_"Ya never had a mind."_

_"Then that means you didn't either."_

_"Leave me the hell alone!"_

_"Sorry, that'd go against my morals."_

_"And we _all_ know that's the greatest taboo in the world, don't we?"_

_"Of course we do."_

"ICHIGO!"

"WHAT!?" the teen yelled in reply, swiveling his head around to look at the person who shouted his name: Uryu.

The Quincy pushed his glasses up along the bridge of his nose. "I've been trying to get your attention for the past five minutes, Ichigo." The Shinigami scowled, the lightest tinge of red spreading across his cheeks in embarrassment or anger, no one could tell. "I wanted to talk to you, remember?"

"Sure I do." Ichigo finished eating quickly, Akuji doing the same. _"You coming?"_ the Hollow-like, Shinigami human asked. A grin, meaning yes, was the answer. The two stood and, not even noticing, Ichigo flash-stepped to his room, his Hollow following him, and Uryu, eyes UFO-sized, stumbling up the stairs after them.

"What the hell was that?!" the blue-haired archer demanded after they'd gotten inside the eldest Kurosaki sibling's bedroom. Being stared at blankly for a few moments, he burst out, "You used _flash steps_ in your _HUMAN body_!!"

"Hmm…I guess Duex was right. Something strange happened with Duex gaining control over our combined power and it somehow enabled us to use certain attributes of the Spirit Form in a body. I guess it's kind of like a Modkonpaku, or Mod Soul." _Speaking of Mod Souls…I haven't seen Kon in a while… Yuzu must've captured him again,_ Ichigo reasoned, giving Uryu time to process the information he'd just given. "By the way, don't tell anyone. We're trying to keep this a secret for as long as possible. Toshiro's group, Dad, Yamamoto, Keigo, Tatsuki, Urahara's group, and our friends, except Rukia but I'm gonna tell her if…_when _she visits, have found out about it."

"I understand that," Uryu replied, shifting his glasses as Akuji flopped into Ichigo's chair. "But what I'm most curious about is the major shift in your reiatsu. It's almost as if it isn't there."

The Shinigami focused his spirit energy into his left hand, dragging it through the air in front of his face and creating the Hollow Mask he and Akuji shared, though it had two red streaks under his right eye to match the left. The tattoos along his arms revealed themselves with it. "That's why. We, Akuji and me that is, finally put our soul back together. Let's just say that I'm the hybrid between the Hollow and the Shinigami, a true one, while Duex is a hybrid between the power of the two."

"If that is correct, then where is the Shinigami part of you?" Uryu asked him, staring straight into the teen's eyes with his question. The action conveyed that he'd be getting an answer one way or another.

"I guess that would be Zangetsu." The fifteen-year-old let his Mask fade after answering, noticing the way the creation moved with his jaw. The angry-red tattoos stayed, the ones under his eyes revealing themselves. "After all, each Shinigami has a Zanpaktou. It'd make sense that he'd be that part of me. Akuji, here…you can tell he's the Hollow. Odd thing, he doesn't have one of those holes anywhere."

"But I think it's 'cause-a him," Akuji cut in, pointing at his other as he stood. Walking over, he circled his arms around the orange-haired human, and Ichigo leaned back into his pale mirror's hold. "I just don't understand how he puts up with me. Tch…I've threatened everything he holds closest to him over an' over. I guess I'm just glad that he ain't hatin' me right now."

_"I can't hate you, Akuji. I love you too much,"_ Ichigo sent to his other, getting a soft smile and a slight pinkish tinge over the Hollow's cheeks. "Return of the sex-crazed vampire," he mumbled under his breath when Akuji started nipping the sensitive skin of his neck.

A slightly flustered Uryu Ishida pushed his glasses up, hiding his blush from seeing the interaction between the lovers. "W-well, I'll just be going back downstairs if you're going to carry on like this," he stated, sharply turning and making his way to leave the room, if not for being stopped by the window banging open from some unseen force.

"What the hell?" Ichigo asked to no one as he walked over to it. "Oh! I see! First, you've got to bust through the damn light fixture in my ceiling! Now, you simply _must_ destroy something else?!" he shouted to the Shinigami party in the air outside of his room.

"Um…we are sorry about your light…" Yumichika said with a sweet smile and stars blistering about his face.

"Eh…Ichigo? You're starting to look like Renji," Rangiku said, pointing to the tattoos on his face and arms.

"Huh? 'Look like…Renji'?" he asked himself as he looked down before cursing in a way that caused even _Akuji_ to look ashamed. The red markings quickly vanished as a small pulse of reiatsu came from the teenager's body. "Sorry about that."

"It is no matter." Captain Hitsugaya's voice shook Ichigo from the slight bitterness he had sank into because of not thinking about hiding his marks. "We…_I_ came for a reason…other than that we are on patrol and stopped by. …I…wanted to…apologize… I have betrayed your trust, Kurosaki."

"Tch. I'd forgotten about that already. Don't worry about it." Toshiro huffed slightly, taking Ichigo's lightheartedness to his apology as an insult. "Hey! Don't get me wrong! I appreciate that you did apologize, but don't get all worked up about it," Ichigo quickly amended, lifting his hands in a defensive gesture. "Did you find any-" he paused there as his Shinigami amulet smacked between his shoulder blades, sending his soul from his body. "thing…" he finished, turning to raise an eyebrow at Akuji.

"There's a Hollow comin'. It's a biggie," the paler of the two informed before the amulet's eyes lit a few times, emitting beeping sounds, and proving Akuji's claim. The orange-haired one grinned at the prospect of another battle, Zangetsu materializing on his back. His eyes widened in a slight comic fashion as he pointed over Akuji's shoulder. "What? Is it a spider?"

"W-white…Z-Zangetsu…" The Hollow had a 'WTF?!' look on his face as he reached over his shoulder, finding a hilt there. At the same time, the same grin spread across each of the two's faces. "Hey, Uryu, you coming?" The Quincy rolled his eyes and shook his head before leaving back downstairs. "Ah well, his loss."

"Quit enamorin' over it and get your ass movin'!" Akuji scolded then added, _"Though a very nice ass it is."_ His statement invoked quite a color of red from Ichigo's face, nearly matching the streaks under his eyes.

_"I'll get you back for that,"_ he replied threateningly before flash stepping from his room, Akuji, with a crazy laugh, following him. _Though I'd rather have it like this than any other way. … I don't want to remember what it was like _before_ Akuji and I got into it after my battle with Byakuya. _Those thoughts made him give a small, genuine smile.

(--)

(--)

(--)

End of the sixth installment of Defense.

Damn! _**SIX**_ of these things?! There's still another at the least. And no, I don't want to put them all in one story because I just don't think it'd be right and it'd annoy me. I'm _very_ easily annoyed.

Speaking of _not _being annoyed, I'd be grateful if you'd click that very clickable button down there beside 'Submit Review'. XD


End file.
